rule relating to its position, or something of the sort? When in this fashion he has managed to say that 'now' is an adverb, or against' a preposition, he really knows no more than he did before. He is simply using words without a perception of their meaning. Nay, the matter is worse than this, for he is deluded into the idea that he knows something, while his fancied knowledge is a mere sham, and this delusion is itself a bar to his acquisition of the only kind of knowledge which could be of any use to him. If the pupil is too young to master the proper explanation readily, wait till he is older; if he is too dull, take him patiently over the ground again and again till the difficulties have vanished. None but learners of abnormal stupidity will hold out against this kind of treatment, and they had better devote such intellect as they have to simpler pursuits. The bane of far too much of our ordinary school work is the ignorant impatience of teachers to get their pupils 'over the ground,' that is to say, through a certain number of pages of some text-book. A tolerably long and wide experience justifies me in affirming most strongly that slow and careful teaching pays best even at examinations. The specimens of parsing and analysis that I see yearly in hundreds of instances, show how deplorably time and (not patience, but) impatience have been wasted in going over and over again the same profitless round of mechanical and unintelligent repetition. It is this that renders school 'lessons' wearisome to the teacher, and dreary and repulsive to the pupil. No matter what the subject may be, learners never find a lesson dull when they feel that they are really learning something.

DUKESELL,

CHRISTCHURCH ROAD, STREATHAM HILL,

January, 1879.

C. P. MASON.

ENGLISH GRAMMAR PRACTICE.

I. Common Nouns and Proper Nouns.

Preliminary Lesson.-Definition of a Noun. Distinction between Common Nouns and Proper Nouns.

Exercise 1. Say (or write) ten common nouns which are the

ERRATUM.

Page 23, 1. 30. For Transitive read Intransitive.

Grammar Practice.

Lie down,

month. The
I like May
We saw an
Petrels and

called Pegasus. My uncle is the captain of the Belleropnon.
Fido. The traveller ascended Helvellyn. March is a cold
soldiers had a weary march. She brought me a bunch of may.
better than June. King Arthur's sword was called Excalibur.
eclipse of the sun. The horse that won the race was Eclipse.
swallows are birds. That cow has lost a horn. He sailed round Cape Horn
in the 'Petrel.'

"O Solitude! where are thy charms?"
"Hence, loathed Melancholy,

Of Cerberus and blackest midnight born.
Find out some uncouth cell

Where brooding darkness spreads his jealous wings."

"You may avoid that too with an 'if'" (Shaksp.). "Tellest thou me of ifs?" He wants to know the why and the wherefore of everything.

II. Singular and Plural.

Preliminary Lesson.-Definition of Number. Modes of form

ing the plural.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

Price 3s. 6d., cloth.

Twenty-third Edition, Revised and Corrected.

ENGLISH GRAMMAR,

INCLUDING GRAMMATICAL ANALYSIS.

Seventh Thousand. Price 8d., cloth.

FIRST NOTIONS OF GRAMMAR,

FOR YOUNG LEARNERS.

ENGLISH GRAMMAR

PRACTICE.

By C. P. MASON, B.A.,
FELLOW OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON.

BIBLIOTHECA

JUN 1879

BODLEIANA

LONDON:

BELL & SONS, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN.

LONDON:

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FATERNOSTER ROW.